Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with image

The DVI Port on my Gigabyte Motherboard no longer seems to work.

cloeburner — Sun, 19 May 2013 11:52:53 -0800

The DVI Port on my Gigabyte Motherboard no longer seems to work. I need the DVI port as I am running a Hackintosh and Apples are not compatible with VGA. What are some of my options and what is your diagnosis? So, I installed Mountain Lion successfully a few days ago and it was running fine, then the day after install I shut down my computer and restarted it and since then the DVI port has not been recognized by the monitor.

I have used several different monitors and several different DVI cables and still the monitor display the message that there is no cable plugged in.

Some questions I have:
1. Would any setting in the Bios of the Motherboard affect whether or not DVI is recognized by the monitor?

2. Would buying a Graphics Card (right now I am just running I7 3770 with the Intel Internal Graphics 4000 HD) presumably fix the problem. I was intending to purchase a graphics card anyway and if that fixes it maybe I should just do that.

3. Why would a restart break the motherboard's DVI port?

I am reluctant to send back the Motherboard because that requires unplugging everything and removing the CPU which I am not eager to do. I'd rather just deal with broken DVI ports on the motherboard and use external graphics if possible.

Thanks so much in advance.

what anime is this image from?

signsofrain — Sat, 18 May 2013 22:14:59 -0800

here's the image

How to create speech bubbles that look like they came from an iPhone?

sevensnowflakes — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 20:22:33 -0800

So I'm looking for a tool that will allow me to create text bubbles that look like they came from an iPhone. However, I don't want something like Fake iPhone Text, as that creates a picture of the entire phone background plus the text bubbles. I only want the text bubbles, disembodied. Does this exist? I'm sure if I had Photoshop I could probably create something, but I don't, and I'm not willing to shell out that much cash. Plus, I don't have any experience in image creation (and I'm not digi-artsy), so I'd greatly prefer using a tool that does the hard part for me. That said, I'd be willing to play around with some kind of free or low-cost image creation software if I absolutely had to.

Backup an image of a boot drive to a RAID 1 & perform restoration?

ihavearedcouch — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 02:17:57 -0800

I have a PCI-E SSD as my boot drive, and a win7-created RAID 1 on two 3TB drives. My boot drive has my user folder on it, but my documents, music, pictures, videos, etc folders shortcut to their respectable folders on the RAID. I would like this to be a full redundancy scheme and it is, but I've run into several nags and I would like to know how to fix them and prepare a fix-it plan before any of the drives fails. The PCI-E SSD is OCZ RevoDrive 3 X2 240GB.

First the nags:
The backup is more than 240GB. I am thinking that Windows is including not only multiple versions of files but also backing up the target's shortcuts as well. This is stupid considering that the RAID 1 has already taken care of those folders. How do I make automatic periodic image backups of the boot drive only and without versions of the files? (I would still like restore points for the boot drive--but that still fits in the 240GB, right?)

Preparing for the worse:

-If my PCI-E SSD fails, I will have to temporarily resort to a mechanical drive until I replace the SSD. How do I quickly restore the boot image (stored on the RAID 1) to this mechanical drive? Lastly, once I've obtained the replacement PCI-E SSD, how do I restore the most recent boot image to that? I've heard it's super difficult. Any surefire methods and instructions?

-If one of my RAID 1 drives fail, how can I locate the bad drive, replace it and restore the mirror without putting the good drive in risk?

I am willing to spend money on software, but only if its “set it and forget it” and offers flawless restoration. Also, I because of limited case space, I rather avoid setting aside another drive or a separate partition for a perfect image copy of the boot drive.

Honestly, I feel that once these questions are answered, this HD setup is a very redundant and cheap way of keeping a hold on my life's data work and a functional computer. If anyone can offer answers to any of the questions here I will greatly appreciate it and I will give back to the community by spreading this method.

One example of this would be building computers for family and friends. I've heard too many stories of people's drives going bust, so this would make the computer I build for them very reliable. The only problem is I need to provide instructions in case something does go wrong.

Lastly, I question if there is a method to move a software raid to a hardware raid if in the future I happen to upgrade to a better motherboard that supports multiple raids (since the pci-e ssd is technically a raid as well). How would I do this?

Bonus question: Let’s say I was to install a “Hackintosh” on a separate SSD/HD. What would be the way to make the RAID visible and editable by Mac OS X? How would I do a boot drive image backup onto the RAID as well?

Many thanks.

App/Filters that made my digital signature look hand written and pretty

DaftMythic — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 18:27:55 -0800

I just filled out a tax form with a signature app where I "drew" my signature in the field (with a mouse) and it applied filter "smoothing" and other things to make it look like a real ink signature... It actually looked BETTER than my real hand written signature. Where can I get something like that to make my own ink looking images? I don't know what software they were using and I cannot get back to that screen. Unfortunately it was a corporate site, so I cannot post a link.

I wrote using my mouse, but it made the long strokes (like the long straight line on my D) perfectly straight, and the loops (like the loop on my cursive lowercase "L") look gorgeous and smooth.

Also, the thickness of the ink tapered off and it made pen-press dots at those locations where I started and ended my strokes.

I think the line changed based on how quickly I drew... I think that is how it knew to make really thin loopy lines for the L and stuff, but thicker less smoothed lines for the other bits.

I'd like to get something like that as a filter I could use in gimp or inkscape or something, so I can create a path of my name, and then apply this filter to clean it up and look nice and use as my generic signature image... as well as other times I want to make something look hand written and don't want to use my ugly ass real life scrawl.

Any ideas? Thanks!

Is there a IrfanView alternative for Mac for a specific design task?

ts;dr — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 02:46:36 -0800

My WineBottler version of IrfanView has stopped working for some reason, I need this for just one task: Click and drag on a picture and get the X/Y coordinates of the selection and size in one quick view. An example: As seen in this screenshot: http://screencast.com/t/MN2SH9fb
I have to mark a specific area on a bitmap and add the coordinates in my CSS file. In IrfanView I can see the selection in the header, with the coordinate of the upper left corner and the size of the selection.
All image viewers or editors I could find only give me the size of the selection, not the coordinates.
I have also looked in Photoshop, Gimp and Adobe Illustrator CS3, but it seems that there is no way to easily display the same information here either.
Closest I could get is "Seashore", but here it is not optimal either since the point information won't stay fixed and readable, or I'd have to create a new layer first.

Fashion change

badger11 — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 09:26:53 -0800

What sort of clothes to wear to project an image primarily of trust and secondarily of mystique/mystery? In seeking to improve myself, I want to upgrade my wardrobe. At work I can wear and usually do, wear T shirts and jeans. I'm tired of that. As part of my self-improvement, a book (Fascinate) shows that I'm viewed as trustworthy and mysterious. I'd like to dress for that.. I'm mid 40's male and have always been a T shirt and jeans guy. This is just one area that I just am not fully understanding

Can deleted image data be recovered?

aerotive — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 08:41:26 -0800

Is it possible to recover portions of an image that have been cropped or cut away? And if so, how to prevent that? Every so often I will put a picture online with potentially sensitive info removed, things like receipts on a shopping site, or maybe an item with a serial number on ebay/craigslist.
I usually use a program called irfanview to cut/crop, here's an example of such an image:

http://imgur.com/d7Q1h

Can the text that was in the black bar be undeleted? I'm pretty confident the answer is no, but I want to be sure. (the sample text is random/not sensitive).

Thanks

It looks great but could you make it a little bigger?

carsonb — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 22:07:26 -0800

I bought a print of a painting I love in the only format available: A full bleed art show poster on glossy 11"x17" bond. The painting reproduction is approximately the top half of the poster, say 10"x8". I can clearly see the grain of the canvas in the print, and it is entirely possible that the original painting is not much larger than the reprint. So my question is, is it feasible to have this print blown up to twice or thrice it's size without sacrificing quality? I'd like to mount a big version of the print/painting and hang it on my wall*. Would that be possible to do with such a small representation?

And if it is indeed possible, could you recommend a place in Los Angeles (preferably somewhere between Beverly Hills and Downtown) that would do the whole shebang for me? I have a suitable frame, but would need the image blown up, matted, and then mounted in the frame.

*I'd like to keep the (signed, precious) poster print in its tube for now.

How do I download zoomable image off a website?

priorpark17 — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 03:19:57 -0800

How do I download zoomable image off a website? I want to download images off a website for my own personal use. Specifically I want to keep a copy of the zoomable image from The Christies auction website.

Here is an example. I want a copy of the higher resolution picture you get when you zoom. Is it downloadable? Is it already in my cache and recoverable?

How Do I Prepare a Graphic to Be Used in a Shirt?

andoatnp — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 12:13:43 -0800

Is there easy instructions or a guide that I can use to create a simple image to be used to print a t-shirt? It will be solid color text on a plain background. This is the text I got from the person who will be printing the shirts:

The max imprint area for the front and back of the shirt is 12" W x 17" H. If you can send the original vector art for the design, that is preferred. Otherwise, please send whichever file you have and we can typically work with it but will let you know if we need a different format.

I am on a university campus and have access to photoshop. Is that the best program to do this, or something else? Is there a guide somewhere that would explain how to take text and get it ready for printing based on those specifications? Or can someone provide instructions?

I'm reasonably computer competent (I know things like basic html/css, R, STATA, latex, etc.), I just haven't done much on the design side of things before.

Some people never seem to actually type their own thoughts.

Lou Stuells — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 14:37:04 -0800

You're on Facebook and many of your contacts are expressing their opinions, frustrations, affirmations and wit by means of shared and reposted .jpgs with some sort of text sentiment on them. Sometimes they're simply text, sometimes there is a background photo or illustration. What are these things called? Have we got a collective term for these graphic motto things?

Giant picture, terrible quality

2bucksplus — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 18:49:58 -0800

Why does this happen: huge sized pictures with terrible image quality. As an example, this picture of a cat from reddit. It's apparently 3264 x 1840 (huge) but terrible quality even when zoomed out to fit my laptop screen. Compare it to this photo, much smaller at 600 x 450 but so much sharper.

I don't know all that much about photography but I'd guess the first photo was taken with a cellphone camera and the second with a 'real' camera, but is that all there is?

What specifically is happening to produce such horrible pictures so frequently?

Who Is That Green Demon?

mreleganza — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 10:44:03 -0800

There's this iconic (or at least I think it's iconic, maybe it used to just be local to me?) image or logo that I am trying to find out the name of/origins of. But describing the image in Google is not coming up with the right results. I've seen it as stickers on cars and suchlike. It's like this green...demon, zombie-looking, driving a souped-up car with no top. He's excited, his eyes are bulging out of the sockets and his tongue is lolling out of his mouth behind him by the speed he's driving. His hand is on the gearshaft.

Anyone know what I'm talking about?

Origin of this gif? [nsfw]

Thisisbuffalo — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 20:20:57 -0800

Origin of this gif? [nsfw] This.

Help me find a children's book, frog and dragon image.

Dynex — Sat, 06 Oct 2012 06:40:46 -0800

Help me find a children's book. All I remember is the cover image, there's a frog standing up on two legs, holding a sword or a spear, beside a dragons tail that has been cut into sections. I remember the sections showing the bone, cut sort of like a sliced loaf of bread. I can't remember any part of the story, I'm mainly interested in finding the image again and the illustrator. I remember loving the cover image and that it was realistic and detailed (through the eyes of a child).

It would have been printed over 2.5 decades ago (gah), and could have been from Australia, Britain, or the Americas.

Suggestions for 2D man/woman animation toolkits/software

godugu — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 05:05:13 -0800

I am looking for a 2D animation toolkit that helps me animate various actors, like man, woman, cat and helps in realising various actions like sleeping, running, etc. with programmatical ease. I have looked into processing.org and started to toy with simple geometric shapes, but yet to stumble across an animation with man/woman actors. Could you help me find some good resources where I could learn to animate such things? TIA.

Help me get this linguistics joke?

Pwoink — Sun, 30 Sep 2012 09:46:26 -0800

Linguistics! Can you guys explain the joke in this image, which represents how different languages get from point A to point B? What is point A? What's B? What does the bit about Russian signify? Why is French so different from Spanish? I'm curious, but I don't understand it at all!

Is this kind of professional grooming the norm?

Saminal — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 18:25:36 -0800

How much say should my employer have over my physical appearance? Last week my company offered me a promotion with the qualifier that I would have to "clean up my professional image". The person interviewing me (who is very high up in the company) had some very specific things for me to change. They told me my silver flats "look like slippers" and that black would be the best color on me. They told me to sit up straight and stop standing with my weight unevenly leaning on one foot. They told me to wear blush, something to make my lashes look longer and some "tinted lip gloss."

I was a little hurt and put off but over the weekend I cut my hair, bought makeup and some new clothes and they seemed very happy Monday morning and gave me the job.

Today my immediate supervisor came to my work site and I suppose noticed for the first time that I have armpit hair and told me I would need to shave it "so as not to offend any one." She then told me my new haircut (which she seemed to like on Monday) seems to "highlight the fact that your hair is thinning." She then put her hands in my hair, I guess to investigate.

I again left feeling hurt and confused. I haven't ever been this high up in a company before or in a position where I interact with clients and the public every day. Is this pretty standard or is this unusual? Are they allowed dictate all the things to me? Should I just "fix" myself to look the way they'd like?

I work in an educational setting and spend most of my day around small children. I am the highest ranking person at my job site. I am late twenties and female.

Saving web images without right-click on the mouse?

mediareport — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 17:52:50 -0800

I'm sure not knowing this makes me an idiot, but I need quick help saving a few images from NASA's site to my hard drive without the ability to right-click. Right-clicking on my optical Microsoft mouse has apparently just died; I'm getting no menu when I right-click on an image (everything else is working fine; changing batteries doesn't help). For now I'm alt-left-clicking to highlight the image and then copying it, but is there another way to pull up the menu that usually appears when you right-click a web image in Windows? I've found keyboard shortcuts for the other things I usually right-click for (ctrl-left-click to open a link in a new tab, e.g.), but can't find anything similar for the image menu.

How can I feel happy about being a skinny male (125 pounds, 6 feet tall) when I have never felt comfortable in my own skin?

jpritcha — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 12:30:02 -0800

How can I feel happy about being a skinny male (125 pounds, 6 feet tall) when I have never felt comfortable in my own skin? I have never been satisfied with my body image because I am constantly trying to manage a case of cognitive dissonance. I am a thin (currently 125 pounds and 6 feet tall), gay male in my mid-twenties and I don't ever remember feeling comfortable in my own skin. My weight has fluctuated in the past as I try to gain weight and then loose it…honestly, I'm not really sure what body type I would feel comfortable in. Interestingly enough, my identical twin brother feels similar about himself.

Growing up I was bullied…probably more than the average kid. I would say that most of the bullying revolved around me being gay, but I also related it to being skinny. I felt like being skinny made me weak and an easy target for bullies. I could never really stand up for myself. Fortunately, I had great friends and a supportive family (still do) who always made me feel loved and accepted for who I was.

I would say that I am a relatively attractive male but I always thought I could feel better about myself if I just gained more weight. I have some idea's as to why I feel this way. I am not really that effeminate but I feel feminine because of my body, which bothers me. I have female friends who are always saying, "Oh I wish I had your body!" C'mon, I don't consider that a compliment. I also feel like I look very young because my body size. A lot people are quite surprised by my actual age…how could they not be when i have a teenagers body. I wonder if people take me seriously because of this and especially considering I have a fairly professional job. I've even had clients talk down to me before, which is very frustrating. One client I was advising kept relating me to her son and would amplify her years of experience beyond me. Thats happened a few times…I've asked coworkers if they've experienced this and they said not really.

The thing I hate the most is when people feel the need to make ingenuous comments about my body size… saying *Oh wow, you are so skinny! You should eat something!" This is not unusual for me to hear. I still don't understand why some people think it's okay to criticize skinny people. You'd never say to an obese person, "Wow, you are so fat…lay off the cookies!" Maybe I'm too sensitive and I care too much about what people think…but honestly, who wouldn't feel slightly offended by a comment like this? It just reinforces this stamina I feel about being thin. Thin people have feelings to ya know...

Last spring and summer, I was fed up with being thin and thought to myself, "seriously, stop complaining and do something about it." I started working out hard and eating a ton more. In turn, I gained about 20 pounds…some muscle, some fat. I wasn't overly toned but I looked bigger. I would get these random, punctuated moments of relief…like "finally, I can start to feel better about myself" But ironically, when I looked at myself, I didn't feel like me. I did get a lot of people noticing my weight gain, and most of my male friends complimented me. Some old friends I met up with were impressed at the difference in my appearance. I kind of felt annoyed by the compliments…like why did it take me gaining weight to get these compliments? Regardless, for some reason I felt like my new body didn't suit me…I looked strange. My small frame didn't look right with this weight on it. When I looked in the mirror, I didn't see me. I still wasn't happy *sigh*.

I had a stressful year this past year because of work, school, and a break up…I ended up loosing most of the weight I had gained. "Bummer" I thought and at first I was pretty disappointed, but then relieved in a weird way. I thought "actually, I don't mind being thin…it's more me. I should really just accept myself for who I am and stop trying to be something that's unattainable and doesn't suit me."

Something shifted in my mind the last few months and now I'm back to my old mentality…I want to gain weight again! These shifts in my mindset can happen because of impetuous, random thoughts. Sometimes I have two opposing thoughts simultaneously…like I want to gain weight and loose weight at the same time. I don't know why I am always unsatisfied with my body. Yes, I can see some underpinning reasons and social issues as to why…but c'mon…I really need to just get over these negative thoughts. I want to stop stressing about this because I do feel happy with myself on many other levels. I understand that I have to just accept myself for who I am, and not put so much emphasis on this shallow issue. I've even talked to a professional counsellor before…and done some self-confidence exercises. But, at the end of the day, these thoughts just never really go away. How can they when people are always rubbing it in my face? Even my friends joke around and talk about how narrow I look. Sometimes the joking gets out of hand and I get upset. An ex boyfriend told me that I should eat more, which was code for gain more weight (and trust me, I can eat and eat and eat). Another ex use to always "jokingly" squeezing my arms and ask when I was going to start working out more. The only time my twin brother compliments me is when I've noticeably gained weight. My motcho dad has spent most of my teens and earlier adulthood making workout and meal plans for me and my brother in order to get bigger. I've tried thinking through this whole weight issue, not thinking about it, meditating on it, not meditating on it, journaling about it, writing affirmations, pretended to like my body (fake it till you make it), stopped looking in mirrors, ect… I feel like the subconscious mind cant accept something it doesn't like…but what if I never like this part of myself? I like my personality, talents, and ambitions, I like my morals and values, I think I am decent looking overall…I like a lot about myself, but I just don't like this negativity I feel towards my body.

So my question is, how do I just be content with my body? How do I decide if I want to gain weight or stay thin…or how do I truly stop thinking about this despite all my efforts?

Cloning/imaging my Mac

andrewesque — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 14:14:37 -0800

I think I am going to replace my Macbook Pro's hard drive. I would like to check that this cloning/imaging backup process I have in mind makes sense. For a variety of reasons, I think I am going to have to get my Macbook Pro (mid-2009 13 in model) hard drive replaced. It has a 60 GB Boot Camp partition with Windows 7, installed from my university's software library when I was still a student there, running on it. Otherwise it runs Lion, which I downloaded online from the App Store; the machine shipped with Snow Leopard.

My concern is in replacing the hard drive, I have Windows software that I don't think I even have the key for anymore (because I downloaded it when I was a student using university privileges) as well as Microsoft Office on both OS X and Win 7 (also downloaded legally when I was a student -- access keys long vanished. This will teach me to keep better track of them!)

It seems like cloning the hard drive would make the most sense. I've done some reading of previous threads and this is the process that seems to make sense to me:

1. Purchase a new external hard drive.
2. Download Carbon Copy Cloner onto my current Macbook on OS X. Follow CCC instructions to create a bootable image of my current OS X partition, on the new external HD acquired.
3. Download Winclone and follow instructions. This will create an image of the Win 7 partition on my Mac, on the new external HD acquired.
4. Before I replace the original HD in my Macbook, plug in the external HD and attempt to boot from the clone that CCC just made, to test that it works.
5. Take the computer in, have the hard drive replaced.
6. Once I get it back, turn on the Macbook -- it will be essentially a new machine and so I'll have to go through the setup steps.
7. Download the CCC software onto the new Macbook. Then plug in the external HD, go through steps to erase the laptop's new HD, and then clone the external HD back onto the new laptop HD.
8. Follow instructions to move the Winclone-created image on the external HD back onto the Macbook.
9. Disconnect the external HD, turn on my Macbook and everything will be identical to what it was before?! (I hope...)

I'm reasonably confident with computers, but given the expense and data at hand, I want to make sure I have a good understanding of the process before I begin buying hardware/software. I think I understand well steps 1-5, but it's steps 6-8 that I want to make sure I understand correctly.

I need to send images and stop sending drives.

Sunburnt — Wed, 04 Jul 2012 22:19:32 -0800

PC Tech filter: What's a common disk-image format that I can use for storing images of bootable flash media? Sending new media to customers so slow and expensive. My company is an OEM that ships rack-mounted devices containing PCs running Windows Embedded from either a CompactFlash (CF) or Solid State Drive (SSD). Because of changes in components, primarily motherboards, over the years, we have a few dozen disk images around that're currently stored in an old Norton Ghost format. I mention it's old, because the latest Norton Ghost can't use them-- compatibility ended around version 11.

Now that we're shipping on SSDs instead of CFs, the cost of the physical media is way way higher (practically negligible for CFs, compared to the order of $100 for the SSDs we use), that on the occasions where we just need to re-image the drive, we don't have an image to send the customer.

Most people want something like an .ISO, but my attempts at making ISOs from flash media failed-- .ISO applications assume that you're using optical media, every time, and I don't see a good way around that. There may be hacks, but we don't want the customer to have to hack anything to restore function to his machine.

I'm looking for a good, preferably free/open image or clone format can image a bootable flash-based OS drive of some kind, and write to CF or SSD drives to make them bootable when mounted. Put another way, writing the images should be free to our customers; it's a bonus if creating the images is also free. And Open, because I don't want to pay a license to use the format, if at all possible.

Most of our customers will be Windows users, but if Mac applications that can be made to use the format too, that would be great.

how to intelligently place a crop box

brightghost — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 15:55:45 -0800

What command line tool should I be looking at for this slightly-intelligent batch image processing task? I have a large collection of screenshots, all which contain the same element but in different positions, and I want to do a batch action to crop the relevant area from each. This region of the screen obviously contains different content in each image, but could be located by a few unique, static graphic elements within it, so I'm thinking of locating the particular graphic element in each by comparing it to a reference image, then using that element's position as the origin to draw a crop box. I'm sure there's some tool that can do this; I've looked through the ImageMagick docs and am not seeing this capability.

I'm asking for a command line utility only because I suspect that's where I'm most likely to find such a tool and because it would be easy to use for batch operations, but I'm on MacOS and would be happy to hear any other suggestions.

Lightweight portable image annotation software sought.

therubettes — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 02:42:21 -0800

I am looking for software (preferrably a portable app) which will allow me to embed an image or images into a file and allow me to add text to that file both above and below the image. I am not looking to edit the image. Word does the job perfectly well, but I don't have it on all of the computers which I switch between - annoyingly I switch machines a lot, but they are all windows machines. I would prefer not to use Open Office either and would prefer the software to be as light as possible. I would like to keep these files on my usb drive and keep the software application on there too if possible. This would allow me to plug in whenever I have a few spare minutes and acess to a computer. I am preparing for an exam and have a number of images each of which is a sample question for the exam. I would like to store each of these images embedded in its own file/document and make notes on them as I work through them. I don't need to be able to format the text or as I say edit the image in any way. Just make notes above or below the file. Thanks in advance.

p.s. I have been Googling Portable Image Annotation Software which lead me to Portable Digital Notebook 1.2.28 which looked promising but is ultimately targetted at Biologists and when installed does not fit the bill - the images are too small and the interface far too complex!